I'm Always Right Sports Podcast
I'm Always Right Ep. 306
Ep. 306 of the I'm Always Right Sports Podcast! Check out this week's rundown and make sure to subscribe! Also use our code: ALWAYSRIGHT for 15% our affiliate partners!
- Tigers make the ALDS!
- Red Wings Expectations
- Lions 3-1 at the Bye
- Preview of AEW WrestleDream
- Review of WWE Bad Blood
- Duration:
- 1h 44m
- Broadcast on:
- 07 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
, and I'm your host is always the mouth of Michigan Robin Decca with me is always my co host the merc so my He is here. He's watching some Sunday morning football watching the New York football JETS jets jets jets suck up on us against the Minnesota Vikings because Ian Rogers is not good at football anymore. Mike, we got a loaded show today though. We are talking some Lions. We got to talk about them. Gritty Tigs. You're Detroit Tigers playing in the A.L. DS series craziness craziness. We're also talking Red Wings a little bit here on the precipice of their upcoming season. And of course we've got AEW's Wrestle Dream to talk about. We've got the fifth year anniversary to talk about. We've got WWE Bad Blood. Lots of stuff coming your way. We're kicking WrestleMania four back another week. I know. Kick me in the chins. I'm sorry. But the amount of stuff we got going on, we don't want this show to be six hours long. I guess things to do. Yeah, Mike got things to do. I have diaper parties to go to. You got what? I have a diaper party to go to. A diaper party. Yeah. What buddy of yours? No, my cousin is having a baby. Which cousin? Oh, good for him. That's awesome. Good for them. I didn't know what a diaper party was. Yeah, by the way, until like a month ago. Yeah, bring diapers. I've had that together now, but I didn't know beforehand. I was like, what cousin? I'm trying to think. Who? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good for you. Congratulations on all that. Yeah, loaded show, though. Like I said, though, Mike, let's just jump right in. Let's talk about them gritty tags, man. The Detroit Tigers playing in the ALDS currently down one nothing as of this recording. You play Monday? Monday at four. Monday at four. Tarek Scooble on the mound. And I'm pretty much a must-win game because they're down 0-1 right now to Cleveland. Kind of had a rough day on Saturday against the Cleveland Guardians, but, you know, they're not going to just win out. So it doesn't necessarily shock me. But going back a little bit right over this last week, it's kind of been tiger central, right, for the entire city, to some extent. You know, in a 2-0 sweep of the Houston Texans Houston Astros. Sorry. No Verlander appearance. He wasn't even on the postseason roster because, you know, reasons. Um, but they get the win scary at times, made some crucial hits at times. Andy Banias with a critical, you know, base clearing triple to kind of seal the game away for them. Um, now that they're in the ALDS, Mike, are you just, we were, we talked about last week, I was already kind of house money because they basically made it. But now that they've won a series, is it just kind of like, yeah, sure. And anything, any other good fortune that comes along will take it. But it's like, if we lose, we lose. It's been a pretty miraculous run to be here. Yeah, 100%. That's exactly how I feel. Um, I even thought if you lost to Houston, you were like, all right, we're just happy to get to this point at a 0.2% chance of one point, making the playoffs just a good feel all around. Yeah, anything they do plus what they've done so far is only good. I don't think. To be clear, I do think they can beat Cleveland. I honestly think they can beat Cleveland. Yeah, I'm less confident, but they still can. I think I'm realizing that I know the whole bullpen pitching idea can work. I don't think it is going to work well. The problem is, is that you need good bullpen pitching when you're doing this, you know, kind of amalgamation type of thing, right? But the problem is too, is that your offense is very streaky. Like you're, you're relying solely on timely hits rather than consistency across the board. You have no consistency across, like Andy Banias, right? Couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat the last two months. All of a sudden comes in, you pinch hit for him because he's going against a lefty because, you know, that's a thing. And all of a sudden, bam, right? Triple. And you're just like, sure, that that makes sense. I think, I guess, maybe. Yeah. You don't have the consistency anywhere. Riley Green is not looking at the plate. Torkelson looks horrendous at the plate. You're not, you're not going to blow the doors off people with your offense to allow your pitching to have a little bit of leeway as compared to, you know, some of these other teams where you're like, you know, you look at the Yankees line up one through nine, you're like, damn, that's a, that's a rough go. Yeah, I just think after watching game one. Yeah. And we'll see Monday. Maybe it changes. It just feels game two. Seriously. Yeah, seriously, we over, but it just feels like the heat behind them has like is starting to fizzle. Yeah. A little bit. Like you could totally cue since series. It just felt like everything they were doing was like working and everything was. It felt like when, you know, Packers last year, Dallas, and you were like, everything they do just works and they're on fire. And then they walk into that Niners game and you were like, you could just tell. Yeah, you're just not a second half. You're like, and this is where the Niners take over. Yeah. Like you could just tell the better team takes over. I feel like at this point, Cleveland in game two, especially because you're putting literally your entire playoff life on screen. Yeah. Because you're like, we need school will be great here and we need to survive one more game and have him pitch game five and be awesome. Like, that is your goal to win this series is school having two unbelievable games and survive. Yeah. Is it what you're hoping for? If you split the two, you come back to America Park, right? You're hoping, okay, we take game three, right? Have that two one lead and then you just got to win one out of the two. That's, that's their clear objective at this point. Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? Probably not. You know, like, and I get it. Cleveland coming into this coming into the season, the expectations were not that high, right? This was Minnesota's division to win. Clearly, if you have all the teams to not make it, that's the funniest. But to your point, right? It's, you need your bullpen is played so well above where they should be, right? Like you look at the numbers and you're just like, how the hell are we doing this? You stop trying to explain it, right? And you're just like, yep, this is what we do. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think to your point, right? You're, you're getting to a point where, okay, that's great, but you're leaving your whole pitching room, no margin for error, like none. And that's a hard, hard ask when you're expecting these guys to go be perfect in these situations, and yet, you know, they're not, you know, and you've got a lot of guys that are, you know, just kind of like, yep, this sounds about, right? Sure, you know. I'm hopeful, if nothing else, regardless of how this series ends up, that this gives ownership, talking to you, Chris Illich, the want, the desire, the confidence to go spend some motherf and money in the off season. And improve this team, right? Get some real at bats in here. Get some guys that, you know, can help you win. And, you know, maybe sign a starting pitcher or two that's not asked, you know, certain things like that might be helpful. You know, I think the future's bright for this team. I'm also a little bit, and tell me if I'm being too pessimistic here. Do you worry that we're going to go into next season with such optimism? And then when they start out, you know, like 11 and 20, everyone's going to be like, well, that was fun. Like, blurb in the atmosphere. No, I think it's definitely a possibility. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I think it's 100% possibility. Because you have a lot of the young guys playing. You're just like, you're banking on a lot of things going right. Yeah, the problem with like long seasons, like the NBA and like the MLB and stuff, it doesn't really account the football too much because it's a less game per thing. Every game feels a lot more important. Exactly. Like baseball, it's very hard, especially for like young guys to be like, oh, we're going to be locked in every single game. Sure. Of 162 games. So I do think that we're going to have high expectations going in the next year, and it's going to be one of those things where can they hit 90 plus games? I don't know, unless they make in needed improvements to pitching and a couple more at bat. Yeah, no, I agree. Should be interesting for sure, but we'll kind of keep an eye out. Maybe we're talking, you know, by the end of this week, we're talking about, hey, man, Tiger's got a chance to go to the ALCS. Or we'll talk about, wow, it was a great season. I think, yeah, I think the series will be over by next week. Right. I mean, so I think like next show, we're either talking great season, great season, or they're in the ALC. This is the greatest season we've ever seen. Yeah. One of the two. Yeah, lots of fun, though. I hope this time there is one home Tigers game, though. That's true. That's true. I look at ticket prices and I win. I don't like them that much. But, you know, it is what it is. Let's shift focus here a little bit. Let's talk some Red Wings, Mike. Their season starts on Thursday. Roster cut down is on Wednesday. So looking forward to that. You know, I don't I don't necessarily want to get too heavy into the roster because we don't have a final roster, right? We kind of know the crux of this team at this point. But I do want to talk briefly just about kind of expectations because I do think this is a weird time for the Red Wings where you should have made the playoffs last year in a lot of ways. There's another reason why you shouldn't. Your goalie situation is still not great by any stretch of the imagination. You're, you're hoping for major progress from the Lucas Raymonds of the world, having a full year of Patrick Kane. You know, so there's, there's some, there's some things right that are going well for this Red Wings team. However, your goals, you know, four were kind of above the mean. Your goals against for a little bit like. So there's a lot of things that like Mark points for regression, especially in the offensive output category. Now, obviously, they're going to try to fight that. You bring it in of Vladimir Terrasenko to fill in the to fill in one role. Obviously, a full year of Patrick Kane is going to be huge for us. But what, what are your expectations? Is it playoffs? Because I don't, I don't know if, if Iserman's expectations are playoffs or not. But I know that if they don't make the playoffs this year, I think a lot of people are going to be like, what the actual hell is happening? Barring, of course, catastrophe, catastrophic injuries across the board. If they remain relatively healthy, meaning they can survive losing Dylan Larkin for more than a game. Is it playoffs for you? Is it, you know, where are you with this wings team? Because I think this is a weird time where you're kind of. Either way, you know what I mean? I can see them missing the playoffs very easily. And I can also see them making the playoffs and going, okay, cool. Yeah, no, I definitely think they should be a playoff team. They should at least make it and win a game in the playoffs. And I don't see, I don't think that's the highest of expectations, especially what they did last year where they were literally a tiebreaker, basically away from not getting in. Correct. I think they should at least get there and win a game or two. I want to say a series win because if you're like in NBA terms, right? Like if you're like going from the nine, ten, going up to like the seven seed, and you're playing like Boston or something, I'm not like, okay, go beat Boston. I think that's a very unfair mark. Go beat the Bruins. Yeah, exactly. Those are some really good teams up there. Oh, I got to play New York. Yeah. But like, unless you can get to the four or five mark that I think that's a much more winnable state. But if you're the seven, eight seed, get in there, win a game or two. Yeah, I think that's a good. That'd be a good successful season for them. Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing this team. There's a lot of in veteran talent on this team, right? I'm I'm very excited about the, the, the, the Terasenko, Patrick King combination. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. I'm expecting Alex to bring it to have a bounce back season as well. Larkin's Larkin at this point. I think Lucas Raymond is just entering that level of, oh, he's going to start becoming that premier scorer that we're anticipating. But more importantly, I think defensively, this is where I think it's going to be really interesting because now you're going to get, you know, a full year of Simon Edvinson on this, on this D line, right? And from what we're seeing in preseason, I think they really like that top pairing of Edmondson and. Mossider, so that's an interesting kind of proposition. You're also hearing a lot of promising news about Marco Casper for a strong pick from a couple years ago, playing really well as well. So you're like, there's a couple guys in here, Nate Danielson, I know, was pushing first round pick from two years ago. You know, there's some youth in here. They're in a weird spot because it's like, you have a lot of veterans that you've signed to kind of pigeon, you know, kind of cover these holes. But you've got a lot of these young guys too that are kind of making their way through and they're like, no, I'm ready to go. I'm very fascinated by their final roster. I'll be like really interested to kind of see what that looks like and maybe we'll do a topic on that next week. But I don't know, man, I think they've got a weird collection of like some veteran guys that have been there done that. But then you've got some young guys that are going, no, man, I'm pushing to make this team. That'd be really interesting. I'm very fascinated into seeing what they do, who they bring up, who they don't. I'm kind of leaning for like, listen, man, if the guy is like, if you're telling me you've got a guy, play your ex, you know, who's getting paid $3 million a year and then you've got this young kid and you're expecting similar outputs, play the young kid. I like to bite in the money and play the young kid because at this point, you got to see what you have, right? And you're not a cup contender. So let's stop acting like we are and let's try and maybe these kids are ready to go, right? Let's take the Tigers approach. Yeah, I'm saying just go play the young guys. Let's see what the hell happens. Yeah, going to be really interesting to see, right? Got all your core signed, locked in, ready to go. I'm looking forward to another Red Wing season. It should be a fun time here. You got teams really starting to peak, right? Tigers playing really well. Lions are at three and one. Wings are, you know, right on that precipice, right? It's starting to feel a little bit like that Detroit resurgence to some extent. Yeah, a lot of fun. And then there's basketball at some point that gets played and we'll hope to God that somebody can open the other. I can't believe this would be good. God damn it. Yeah, I don't know. The Ballet Sports treats them like they're good because they always get... It's on the rental treatment over the wings and I'm like, wait, so the wings are going to play off push and we're playing the 13 win pistons over here. Oh, okay, cool. That makes... That makes all the sense in the world to me. Said nobody ever as there's 12 people in the stands. Get out of here. Drives me nuts. Every time I'm like, oh, wings are on click pistons. Mother! Oh, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it's irks me, irks me to death. I can't imagine they get better ratings for the pistons than the wings. There's no way unless they're like, oh, well, he's playing like Luca, so I'm going to watch them now. Yeah, if you're like, can you imagine turning on you're like, okay, I'm going to go watch the pistons versus the hornets tonight. I'm going to jump off a bridge because there's got to be something else better at the bottom of that river other than this. Yes, I agree with that. Big bang theory reruns, got to get better. They get unbelievable. Isn't that crazy? Actually, we need to get on one of these shows, Mike, and a show that runs for like eight, nine years and then just gets rerunned into perpetuity where it's like, you're just getting royalties forever. Like Jim Parsons is never going to have to work again. No, even without the perpetuity, he's never going to have to work again. Sure, he was getting like $5 million in episodes. Yeah, I know, but you know what I mean? Like Seinfeld, like, why do I got to make other things? I don't need to. And then I make a stupid pop tarts movie that's terrible. But like, you know, like, but whatever. Like, you just, like, you know, isn't it amazing? Seinfeld's like, I created Seinfeld. And then my next two projects outside of standup comedy, which are hilarious, he's like, I made the B movie and the pop tarts movie. And they're both awful. That's Sherry Seinfeld's resume. It's like, man, I nailed it. And then I got some, you know, ground ruled singles. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, like, he's like, yeah, it's a big bang theory reruns do some stuff. Yeah, we just had the hit by AW a lot with their. Yeah, no, those lead ins. Those lead ins go crazy. Um, well, they can't leave the network because. No shit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute. But I just, I don't know, we just need to get on one of those shows. So we just like, hey, aren't you that guy from that show from 20 years ago? Yeah, you're damn right. I am. You're damn right. I am. You go to like every comic con ever when you're that guy. Yeah, exactly. How many guys from Star Trek are still making? Yeah, tons of money. I'm in Conroy once like every comic con ever. I know I miss him. That's different. He was Batman. That's different. That's totally different. Jim Parsons was Sheldon Cooper. I don't know if you know. Yeah, but Jim Parsons is like, I'm not, I'm not talking to you weirdos. That's not happening. Yeah. But anyway, sorry, we got off topic, but I'm just saying cool. Figured out with what I'm saying. You know what I mean? The fact that you're not a big brother yet is. It is kind of crazy. It is kind of bullshit. Anyway, let's just focus here a little bit. Let's talk lions. We're at the by this week. So not don't talk about anything post dated. Three and one at the by they did it. Super Bowl champions. Wait, no, just winners of the Seattle game. Because we because we can for whatever reason. I was at the last game that they beat Seattle when it was Russell Wilson's rookie season. That's the last time it was in 2012, bro, because they've only played six straight. They've played him six times since then, and they've lost every one since then. Yeah, last three were, you know, that makes sense. It's been rough. I mean, Seattle was good. And we were shit. So it makes sense. But yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, not good. We just for whatever reason now play Seattle every year for. I don't know why it just lines up like that just happened. It's always in Detroit. Never in Seattle anymore. Last time. Yeah, last time they were in Seattle was not good. The Patricia here. Yeah, where Russ is like, I'm like four for four for four touchdowns and DK make house. Like I have seven thousand yards, but it's fine. And Patricia just in there like, it's all part of the plan. Anyway, lions are three and one at the by right. The body is coming at a good time for them in this team, right? You're hopefully, you know, you're getting a week off. So Ragnar hopes to come back. You know, you're having Barnes another week to heal up, you know, on that four week IR stint. And you get a good chance to prep for a good Dallas team. But overall, right? I do want to talk a little bit. It did fit this game in particular. I want to talk about Seattle specifically for a second where that game on Monday night felt like a 2023 Lions game to me. And what I mean by that is, is the is the offense. Finally, showed life, right? And you were like, okay, cool. And, you know, you have your old lines beat up a little bit. You're beating up on a beat up defensive line, right? And a secondary that really hasn't been tested yet. And you're like, nope, we're just going to, we're going to do our thing. And then the defense went, oh wait, it's Gino Smith. We're not supposed to stop Gino Smith. And so the defense just continuously was like, we're just going to continuously loud. You know, the middle hook, the middle hook route that's wide open in your zone as two linebackers are right here and the receivers right in the middle. And they just go, how do you get that there? I don't understand. The traffic skills special. Yeah, it was great. I was really enjoying it. But it felt like a 2023 game where the defense was like, we're just going to solely rely on turnovers because we're never going to get a stop. But we're going to get one turnover in the early part of the game where offense, you better cash in or else we're going to lose this game. And thank God they did to get that 14 point cushion because it was back and forth back and forth. It was a great game. All things considered. Yeah, it just felt like to me like a 2023 Lions win offense. You better carry because the defense is going to make two, three plays overall in the whole game. Otherwise you're going to walk right down the field. Allow some big third down conversions. Still don't know what Aaron Glen scheme is. Don't truly understand it. But thoughts on their Monday night win, you know, just overall. Did it help your confidence in this team? Did it lower it? Like I felt like we came back to what we were where it was like defense playing above their heads the first three weeks. Offense clearly wasn't. And then they just went, no, no, no, this is where the offense is and the defense is going to come back down to earth. It was, I mean, you put 42 points up. That's a pretty nice thing. Yeah, no, definitely. It's one of those. It's a very hard game for me to say I'm like fully back to believing only because, and I'm not saying this is an excuse at all. Yeah, but when you're missing your four starting defense alignment, like a lot and you're starting linebacker like a lot in the front seven was a lot easier for the Lions to handle when you're dealing with literally. I don't know who because it was all backups, but that was, that's like the only thing. It's like, it's hard for me. It was like when the jets early in the year, you play like the Niners and then right after you play like Tennessee and I'm like, I don't know how you are because you looked really bad here. And it's Tennessee and they were missing people. I was like, I just don't know how to feel. And now we're getting to week five when they're losing to Minnesota and I go, I think I'm kind of seeing where you are now. I am seeing where the Lions are at. And I think they're still a good team. But I need like, yeah, maybe the Dallas games next week, Minnesota specifically in Minnesota will give me like a good because I do think Minnesota is a really good team. I don't know if they're like a high echelon, but I think they're really good. They're quite well. Yeah, sure. I think if they play well and beat them, that I'll go. Yeah, and that's, and that's where, look, I looked at it, you know, however way they get there, right, the three in one. Yeah. And you come out of your schedule where you looked at it and you go, man, okay, we got Rams Tampa and Seattle and then, you know, an up and coming Arizona team, right, in your first four weeks. Obviously you want to be four now, right? And you look at it and there's a good chance you could be four now. There's also a good chance you can be three and one with the loss to the Rams and you beat Tampa if you just score ever, you know, there's, you can skin this cat a million different ways long and start of it is your three and one. And I think if I would have told you might coming out of this, hey, look, you're going to be three and one out of the going into the by. I think we'd all take this record and where they're at right now, right? I think they're playing. I think the offense finally kind of turned it around a little bit, right? I see your point about the defense 100%. I was more confident and happy about the play call selection. Yeah. There was only one time in that entire game where I went, what the hell was that? And that was the third in short when you tried to sweep to David Montgomery and I went, what are we doing? But I felt the play calling. There was a rhythm involved, right? Yeah, you got the run game going early. And of course, she made big plays, right? And everybody does, but like, I just felt there was a level of post that first drive where they was a disaster. They really came out and were like, yep, okay, like, this is the plan. We're going to stay ahead of the sticks. I thought golf was phenomenal. I mean, you can't be much better than, you know, 18 for 18, but, you know, they didn't ask him to do too much. He made the right reads every, you know, you got everybody involved. You had big plays from La Porta, J-Mo, Amunran, like, it just felt like a, you know, okay, this is what I expect. And I know, I guess that's not fair. And I guess that's a question for you is, do you think that through this first four weeks, we had such high expectations of their offense that it was like, well, the fact that they're not put, not 40 points a game is like, what the hell, right? And that's the cause for concern. Or do you think it was more? Do you think there's more to that where it's like, no, they just didn't play very well? I mean, I think they didn't play well. I think it's the same thing. I think all good teams go in with such high expectations. And then when you're not exactly meeting those super high bars, it's, I think the same thing can be exactly set with the Kansas City Chiefs right now, where I think everyone goes in and goes, "Hey, you have Mahalams, Travis Kelsey, you should be maybe not killing everybody." But there are a lot of the Cincinnati games specifically, I go, you basically lost that game. And you kind of got like bailed out a little bit and kind of like survived that game. But like, Atlanta, why are you so close with Atlanta? Last week, they played somebody really close. The Chargers. And I was like, Chargers will have anybody playing right now because they're all on the board on her. And Herbert's got like a high ankle sprain and he's barely whirling through it. And I'm like, you won by seven in like a last minute touch. I was like, sure. So like, when you look at the Chiefs, it's like, sure, but they're not, they're not playing great, but they're winning, but it's like, I can see holes, but also not. Like, I think the lines we went in with like, yeah, this seems to be awesome to defense. It's gonna be better because you revamp secondary and the offense, you saw what they did last year. They're awesome. And when they don't hit that, it's like, maybe instead of like putting these expectations, they're going to score 50 points every game and not allow any points. They wish them more realistic of like, they might win some of these games 27, 21, right? And that's okay. Because that's how the Chiefs win is they win 27, 21 and they win Super Bowls. Well, and this year, you know, a ton of breaking it away from the line specifically and talking about just the NFL in general, the NFL this year so far is weird. And I don't know if we have this conversation every year, right? And then that's not just because Minnesota's playing well, but like overall, you like you look at teams and you go Baltimore. The hell's going out Baltimore, right? You lose a crappy, like, okay, you lose close to Kansas City. Fine. Bad loss to Raiders. And then you come out and you beat an undefeated bills team. Handily, and you're like, okay, cool. And then you look at like Dallas, Dallas comes in there, puts a whooping on Cleveland. And then you lose. And you're like, this is weird. Okay. And then you look at, you know, Minnesota, they're playing like crazy right now. Okay, that's weird. Green Bay. Jordan loves out. We win. Jordan loves in. We don't win. This is like. Yeah, the whole league right now, if the lines would have lost to Seattle, the entire every division would have had at least two teams or two losses. Everybody's like on that same level right now and trying to figure shit out. And I feel like this is the longest it's been like into a season in recent memory where you're like, we have no idea. Like, yeah, I can't see still good, right? But like, is Minnesota real? Are they playing teams at the right time? Like, I'm actually watching the Jets implode on your on your phone screen right now. They're actively dying. You know, is it because Minnesota is really good? Or is it the Jets have so much internal chaos that they're just exploding, right? Yeah. The Niners have two losses. Nobody saw that coming, right? The Rams entire offense is gone. I just think it's a really weird year so far in the NFL as a whole where it's like, I don't know who outside of Kansas City to truly put your chips behind and go, Oh, well that team, you know, Philly's got problems. Yeah, you know, like, it gives me a lot of worry, too. Yeah, because I think there is a lot of diversity in the league right now, which is fun. Yeah, sure, hypothetically. But I think it just leaves to us. So, the Chiefs are just going to win this. Yeah, right. Because they're the team with the really good defense. You have the best quarterback. Yep. And because you don't have another, it's almost, it would be almost better like when the Warriors were awesome when you have that Cavs team. Yeah, right. And like no one else is any good. Yeah, right. Like everyone else has a chance, but like one team has a legit chance compared to right now where it's like, all these teams are like good. Yeah, but like in any of them actually beat the Chiefs when everyone's met. Yeah, like no one is great. Yeah. And I almost would rather just be like, can the Niners just be like amazing? Yeah. Just so like when they get to the Super well, I go, there's a chance because if the Super Bowl was played next week and you put almost anybody in there versus Kansas City. Yeah. No one's winning. I'm not picking any of them. Like, I'm not confident that maybe in the next 13 weeks, I'll get more confident in the Lions or I'll get more confident. But like right now, I'm like, I think they look at this Lions team and I go, look, there's some, there's some deficiencies, right? The penalties are a problem right now, right? And they've been inconsistent on offense. Am I very happy with the way they played, especially on offense last week? Of course I am. Like, I mean, how can I not be? They, you know, 42 points. And do I think that they are going to find their stride? Absolutely. I don't. I have full confidence that they are going to do that. Sure. But again, right? To your point, it's like, if you put them right now, like you're telling me, hey, Lions, Kansas City, I'm like, oof, even in a neutral site, I'm like, oof, I'm like, yeah, it's just, it's just a heart. Every Lions fans are, well, they beat them last year. Okay, it's great. That was 24 months ago. I don't care. Like, like, it's, it's a new year and it's very, the amount of bad quarterback play that we have seen this year, I think is on a massive rise. Like, hugely, like, Mahomes has thrown how many four or five picks already this year, something crazy. Yeah, there's a standout with him right now that is not very favorable to him. Yeah, right, because with his dropped interception rate is like, crazy high, like way more. He has like three more than Tom Brie does his entire career. Yeah. And it's him, like, yeah, right now. I was like, huh, I was like, yeah, everyone. When you look at it, right? Mahomes hasn't played great. Like, Sam Darnold has, that's, that's a, again, I'm waiting for the, no offense. Sam Darnold, I'm waiting for the regression. I know, I know I'm a Lions fan. You just say, I'm like, I'm not saying Minnesota is not good. I'm saying him playing lights out. Yeah. You know, the funny thing with Sam Darnold, though, is, and I wouldn't say this for a lot of other people. And maybe this is the deep rooted Sam Darnold like I have in me is, I just think that he's now in the system. Yeah. That flourish is the things he's good at. It's really exciting for him to not have a job next year when he goes and gets paid somewhere else because they have JJ McCarthy. Yeah. But like, I just think like this year, I was like, and I think JJ is going to do this very similar thing. I just am like, I think there's something there that, you know, kind of also just. Yeah, he's a good play color. Sure. Unbelievable. Yeah. But you look at like Kirk Cousins with Atlanta. He was supposed to be awesome. Yeah. You know, I mean, Dak Prescott. He had one really good game, right? I mean, Sean Watson's always terrible Lamar, right? Running more than he's throwing right now, right? Golf, the interceptions are way up compared to last year at this time. Like, I can name a quarterback and you can go, yeah, that was not a great day, right? You know, even the rookies, like Jane Daniels is playing great. They're doing too. Like, it's just, it's one of those situations. Kale Williams can't find the end zone to save his life. And he's like, you're looking at the league across, you know, league wide. And I see all these power rankings, like Colin Coward's got all these power rankings. They go, how the hell are you able to power rank any of these people? Because you can't tell me anybody's like, holy shit, that was amazing, right? Like, just, they're just firing all cylinders. You can't say that, you know, so it's just a little interesting. I think the league right now is at a weird tipping point where it's like, man, it's kind of anybody's game right now. But I think these next two weeks, going back to the Lions are huge for Detroit, right? If they can go in Dallas, Minnesota, win these two, all of a sudden now you're looking at all your five and one. Okay, now maybe we got, maybe we're cooking with some gas here, you know, you have three and one each quarter of the season. I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty happy about everything. Any other quarterback or any other football, you want to, oh, Devontay Adams very quickly wants to trade. He wants out of Oakland or Vegas. I'm stunned, shocked even, can't tell by the tone of my voice. Who gets him? I think the Saints wind up doing it probably only because they're like, we were two, we were two and now we're two and two. So like maybe. Yeah, that's not great. Another team that's old past it where they just need to rebuild, but they refuse to do it and they trade for the, and he's got a lot of money on his contract too. That's the other thing. Everyone's like, Lions should do it. And I go, now with that amount of money, you're paying, you're about to pay hutch, you're already paying the Amunra a bunch of money. I think I actually. Thanks. I do think, and it was crazy because Nick Ray on his podcast made a really good point on this. I don't don't say that. Those two things don't make sense. But it was, it was actually a crazy point that he made on it. I think actually the chief should do it. Oh, I mean, she's 100 cents to do it. Why not? 100%. But it was, he made a point on like the Raiders not trading to a division rival and then he kind of went against it, which made a lot of sense, but I think, I think the chief should do it. I think, here's the thing. I think the chiefs can, right? And I think that is a very much like, Hey, Annie Reed's not going to be here forever. Yeah. So let's try and milk this as much as we can. I think, I think like, do the chiefs have the cap space? That's the question. They have to. Yeah, because they find money. Yeah. Well, that's one of those things. I'm looking right now. So give me a sec here. But if they have the cap, why not? Why not? It's not like they're drafting us. And if it wants to get the three Pete, you know, it's going to care. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Because it would be like a one year thing, probably or whatever. And then Reed might retire. Kelsey might be gone and then like, Oh, they win this year. I think Kelsey retired. Kelsey's gone. Okay, so they have 3.8 million in cap right now. They do not have the cap space in any way shape or form to make that trade. Don't make away. I'll find a way as compared. I'm a look. Let's let's take a look at the contract that people would be now granted. The Raiders could take some of that, but they're not going to take all of it. Yeah. Devonta Adams currently his cap hit is $25 million. Their cash total. Their dead cap is 40. I'm going to take a look here and see the next couple of years. So now, to your point, if they did make the trade and they figured out how to get the financials. Okay. They do have a potential out after this year with a $15.7 million dead cap hit. So if they're willing to eat 16 million, which I'm sure they would to win a Super Bowl, right? They can make the money work and say, Hey, look, we're just going to take 15.6 right on the chin. Yeah, right. They could do that. If they don't, though, this is where shit gets really difficult for this Devonta Adams thing is his next two year cap hit. Okay. 44 million dollars a year. Next two seasons. Yeah. That's insanely high for a receiver who's going to be 33 and 34 respectively. Yeah. That's what I think is going to make this deal really difficult is the Raiders thought, Hey, all right. I'm going to get Devonta. We got Derek Carr. John Grune is going to be, you know, we're going to do this thing. Yeah. And it clearly has not worked out that way. That's going to be really difficult to trade as well. So I do wonder what the, again, if you're willing to just bike that apple and take the $15 million dead cap, which if the cap continues to rise as it does, like this year, you saw a lot of NFL teams because the cap rose more than they anticipated. They go, maybe it's the time we cut bait with some of these bad contracts and just take the dead cap on the chin this year because we have the cap space to, it doesn't affect our free agent spending. We're going to sign the guys we want to sign. And then let's get rid of these guys that are just money pits and get rid of it and bite this bullet now. If that's the continuous trend in the NFL, yeah, right. And you do that. And also, I do wonder what the compensation would look like for a contract like this. Like they're saying a second round pick and then like a meaningful player. And I'm like, what does that mean? Like, that's why people like the Jets maybe trade Mike Williams ago. Mike Williams is not good. So I don't really know if that's a meaningful player to the Raiders. You know, what would you think gets it done for a team? Like do you have like, if you just want to say picks? Yeah, I mean, I think the second round pick plus plus a starter of some sort starter level kind of. So a second round pick from the Lions and Tim Patrick gets it done. Like in the ballpark. If you said him in like Anziloni, I guess he'd be like a full starter though. I'm trying to think of what I'll give you one. I'll give you one. Him and like a John Kaminsky. Who's a starter. Yeah. Right. Got it. If Davenport wasn't hurt like every single day of his life. Like say Davenport. Yeah, but like something like that where it's like your second or third version, but he's technically a starter. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I think good. If the Lions made the move. They're not going to, but if they did. Yeah. Reactions. Does it all depend on compensation? Like let's just say that's rough. Right. So they said, let's just say they go second round pick, which means they wouldn't have a second or third round pick this year because they traded their third next year for the mono trade, which I still hate. You give away your second, which I don't think they're going to do, but let's just say that's a second Tim Patrick and then. He fought to Melafone because he's going to be a free agent. Right. Somebody, some other relatively known piece. Yeah. Right. To the Raiders for Devontae Adams. Happy? I'll be pretty stoked. Stoked? I'll be pretty happy. Okay. All right. Now, what do you think you would like to get Max Crosby? Because that's a deal I'd be much more interested. But that's a lot more picks and people. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. But that would, that would jump them into. Yeah. Like, Oh, shit. We're going for it. Yeah. I'm on board that they could actually like win games. Yeah. I mean, they're winning games now. Yeah. Also, real quick, before we move on to wrestling here, Dan Campbell reached a milestone with that Monday night win. You want to guess what it is? reached a milestone. It's a very sad stat, but I did think it was at least interesting. Okay. I'm going to say one. Okay. And you can definitely just laugh or just go Michael, you might be right on. So he has the most, maybe outside of Thanksgiving. I don't know how you count that prime time wins as a mindset. Not that stat. No, no, he might, but that's not the one I think of. I don't know if he does, but I just think he's going to come up on Monday. Okay. You ready for this? Really? Like, bump, bump, bump, step. Okay. He officially reached 500 as a lion's head coach with that win. Oh, okay. He's 29, 29 and one or something like 27, 27 and one, I think, or something crazy like that. So through, I mean, when you start out in three and four, four and what was it? He was three, 13 and one, and they started out one and six, right? So four, 19 and one. Yeah. To now being at 500 in the last two years. That's pretty crazy. It's a good comeback, right? I told my buddy, Eric, this news like, okay, and yeah, I knew he was around five. Yeah, I knew I thought he was close, but I was like, I was like, I thought that was kind of neat to think about where you start where you're just so far in the hole to begin with, right? I thought that was kind of a neat stat where you finally got to the point and he's like, he's like, talk to me when he's like winning percent and 650. I go, well, yeah, that's the goal, but when you start out for 19 and one and you're like 23 and eight, the rest of the way. That's a crazy number. Yeah. You're 23 and eight in your last 30 some games. That's a pretty nice winning percentage. I'm just saying once last time, you can say, yeah, lions were 23 and eight in the last 31. That's insane. No. It happened. Maybe like Caldwell-ish. No, because Caldwell went 12 and 5, 7, 9, 9 and 7, 9 and 7. He's always at 500. No, that's true. Gabbage can't beat any good team. Yes, that's the other thing. That's the biggest difference to think between the Campbell and Caldwell stuff. Lions have beaten good teams. I mean, clearly, you went to the university championship game, but like, Lions have beat good teams. Caldwell never beat good teams. Ever. That's the biggest difference. Anyway, let's shift focus here. Let's talk AEW. Lots of news coming out of the AEW from we're going to preview Wrestle Dream, but before we do that, Mike, AEW gets a new television deal worth $185 million or $6 billion, depending on what source you're reading from, whether they're pro AEW or not. It's maybe $12 if you're listening to certain publications, whatever. Long and short of it is they're staying on the Turner networks, right? No more rampage, which. Let's take a moment of silence. It's a really good show. It's the show that see him from debut time. I really enjoyed it. The first three episodes are really good. Yeah, just like collision. The first one. That was really good too. Remember we talked about collision felt fresh. Yeah. Yeah, I watched it since. But no more rampage, but still we get dynamite in collision, right? On the Turner networks. Yeah. Yippie, Skippy. Thoughts on the television deal. Do you have any thoughts at all? I'm not shocked by this. I'm going to get to the other part of this in a minute. What's the other part? Well, the Mac stuff. Oh, okay. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, I know. I could see it in your eyes like you're not going to mention the other part of it. I could literally read you like a book. You're like, I was like, there's more to it. Yeah. Just the TV stuff. Yeah. I mean, I'm not shocked. They're doing. They're doing. Yeah. No, listen, I was happy for it. Right. I was glad that we got something right. You know. Listen, my biggest worry would ever be if for some reason they couldn't get this deal done. Yeah. They like fell off a cliff became like a TNA ish or a destination America TV and then WWE just kind of took all of their talent over and then just monopolized again. I think that is like the worst thing for wrestling in general. Now, maybe you'd help out like New Japan and some of the other companies a little bit, but there is no ring of honor. But there is no ring of honor. PwG doesn't even run shows. Like you don't have that booming independent scene that we had just seven, eight years ago, where you're like, man, there's a new Japan's killing it. Ring of honor's got some great talent. Exactly. Like you'd have a, you'd have a monopolization with like TNA and AEW if they were smaller doing stuff and then New Japan doing those overseas. Sure. So I'm happy that they got the deal because it keeps two legit companies in the US kind of going at it. You get more shows. You get more chances for good matches and more good storytelling. So I'm never going to hurt on saying, yeah, more wrestling because if you get more than if one sucks, you can just watch the other one. Exactly. So, but if it's just WWE and it sucks, then you're just watching anything. So, no, I'm really happy for them. I'm glad that they got the deal done. I thought it was a great timing in terms of the fifth anniversary. It feels like they've been sitting on it for a minute. The other part of the deal, though, is they are going to HBO Max as well. We're going to get replays, right of Dynamites and Collision on Max, right? Is that what I heard? Yeah. And then we are getting. Yeah. So I believe they're getting same day. Yeah. So like to show, I think it's going to be like what Netflix is going to do. So they're going to air it. Yeah. And then it's going to be immediate replay replay. Maybe like the next day. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Quick turnaround. Quick turnaround instead of the WWE with Hulu or P. Yeah, we're going to wait a week or five weeks or something before the show gets posted. Yeah. You're going to have a pretty quick. I don't know who was watching Ron Hulu. I forgot that that even existed. So I was like, oh, man, I got it. I watch it on Hulu. I go. So you're a month behind? Like, yeah. So, but yeah, I think it's, yeah. I pretty sure it's like same day, next day. Yeah. Turn around, which is nice. Yeah. And then also to that, pay per views are coming to HBO Max. I had a discounted price. I think WWE is going to be going to that too. I know. I'm because you see, does it be cocktails ending? I know that's what's going to be on Netflix. And it's going to be like $30 for pay per view. Yeah, I really hope it's not that much. Like here's the thing. If they were to come out and say, Hey, look, it's going to be 10 bucks for every review. Fine. Right. I do. I will say and I have like no insight in this at all. I do think the big four eight w one five. No, I think those are going to be like 30. Yeah. I think you might get like 1999 for the non big ones. I mean, it's better. So it's better. It's better than $50 for all of them. So I think that's a win. I agree. And having them all on Max, because I believe they're going to put the old ones on there at one point as well. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, you're going to have the library on there and then you'll just pay for the new one every whatever. So I do think all of that included makes having just one destination for everything. A. W. Will be really nice. Yes, I'm going. Okay, I buy them on Triller TV, but then there's no where to actually watch the TV show. Then you have to go here. Like you just be like, All right, go to Max. You know, I just missed the W. W. Network. I love paying 10 bucks. I get everything. Yeah, I get all the, I get the library. I get the whole nine yards. And I think that's I think part of people's frustration. Is I'm already paying for Max, right? So if you're paying 10, 15, whatever the hell a max subscription is, right? And then now I have to pay an additional cost for this pay per view, right? Like, what if you're buying Max just simply for A. W. Right? Like that, that, that there's a subsection of the audience that's going to do that. Well, it's what the UFC does is really irritating is to buy their pay per views. Right? By the way, way too much money for pay per views. They're like $75. I know it is. I know way too much. Yes. But you have to have the ESPN plus subscription. Right? Like, you can't just go to pay per view and be like, I'm going to buy us 75 or whatever it is. I think you have to have the ESPN plus subscription to be able to buy it. So the subscription is like 9.99 and then getting that. So it's the same thing with Max, which is which is annoying. Yeah. I will say the one thing, though, is I think Max, and this is literally just a me opinion, I think Max has one of the best. Like libraries. Oh, I agree. I think Max has a lot of options. I think it's I think it's top tier sopranos for TV and a lot of really good TV. Well, you've got all the DC stuff. Yep. So like for me personally, I would have it normally just because I think your library is really good. Yeah, sure. So just including that on to there. Same thing with Netflix too. Netflix has a really good library. Getting to the point where if WWE's Smackdown could go to streaming somewhere and we're all already got Netflix, I can cut the cord at that point because then, you know, all I need is football. I can figure that out, you know, at the end of all. But that's what I mean is like if Netflix had both Raw and Smackdown for say, and they need to be on Max, like it'd be so nice to just be like, okay, I go to Netflix for this one. I go to Max for this one and you don't need any other really subscriptions. If you're a wrestling fan and you don't need the cable, like I think it'd be all because so I like the idea of them going to Max. I love the fact of going to Max. I was just a little disappointed back at a discount rate. I go, how discounted? There's better be like 50% because like I'm tired of spending 50, 60 bucks every month. Like I got to spend it, you know, this month for stupid Russell dreams. It's like, okay. Yeah, but I do. Yeah, I do think that at least initially the discount be like, oh, it's not 60 or whatever. Yeah, sure. I do think the first like like revolution, 25, you're gonna be like, oh, it's nice to see $20 on there instead. Yes, I agree with that. But then I think after like four months, you're gonna be like, why is it still like $25 every time? Right, exactly. And then the WWE shows are gonna be really annoying because I'm like, I'm paying $5 a match if this is $25. That's not necessarily how I want to do that. You know what I mean? Yeah, they might move their thing or I really like, you know, Armenia is gonna be like $60 to put money in because like it's the big show. I really hope not, but that would all be, but that's until 2026, I don't think because I think peak so until then we get anyway. Anything else you want to talk about before we get to Russell dream? I've voiced my concerns about the fifth anniversary, but I'm not gonna we can do we can loop some of that in as we. Yeah, that's fine. I don't think so. Okay. All right. Let's preview Russell dream that we'll get to it. We have Russell dream. I'd like to name. I also have a really, I have a very big question for you. Okay, like me specifically. Well, I just don't know the answer to like, like, I want your opinion. I guess on. And but we'll wait until. Is this a certain match? Yeah. Is it like the match? Yeah. Okay, then we'll do that one last. Yeah, yeah. All right, cool. All right. So the main event. I would assume it's the main event. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure of your. Yeah. No, no, no, tag match. I'm like, well, I don't know where you want to talk about that. But I don't know what the tag match is. Oh, good. Holy fun. So pre show we have the pre show. Oh boy. Brian Cage and Atlanta, Jr. for the ring of honor television title. Sure. Sounds great. Next. Couldn't care less. The fact that you have a guy in John Morrison who's now Johnny TV and he's not the television champion. I just feel like it's a missed opportunity. But that's just me. Next up. We have the ring about a world title, man. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Yes. That's what I say. Frisco versus Chris Jericho with Big Bill and Brian Keith. Don't forget. Yeah, this has a chance really to be a five star classic in every way. I mean, if you're looking based off that promo that happened on Wednesday where Jericho who has never met. Jay Briscoe start meant, you know, starts talking about Jay Briscoe and how long, you know, send everyone's like, I'm mad at you and, you know, and Mark, you're having Mark talk for a long period of time. Like if your expectations stop best match on the show, I know there's an offspring match, but everyone hates those. Yeah. So like this match obviously has to be. This one obviously has to be the best man. No, it's because Ricochet's in the match. We hate Ricochet. Oh, sure. My bad. Yeah. We love to cast. So we love Osprey. We just don't like. Yeah, we only ricochet. Everything ricochet does immediately is just banned. Yeah, yeah. Fair fair fair. He's not okay with it. You're 100% right. My bad. I'm crying. Mark Briscoe wins and I'm moving on. I'm gonna say Jericho wins. Okay, I guess we're not moving on. I'm gonna say Jericho wins only because I don't understand why Jericho hasn't won a match in like three years. So like since he was last time he was right on a champion. I don't know. Sure. Jericho went from fighting hook for the FTW Championship meaningless to fighting Orange Cassidy for a backpack meaningless to the Ring of Honor Championship. That hurts me to say. Yeah, not sure. Not great. All right. So next up we have singles match. Darby Allen's open challenge. Yeah, it's Brody King gets Brody King. Yeah. This will be a fun one because Brody King's just gonna throw him a lot around a lot. Sit on him a few times. Is this the start of a Darby losing streak before we then build him back up to do something? Yeah, I feel like that's coming where it's like we're almost like we kind of get. I would personally, and I've been thinking about this actually, like Darby can't talk. Okay. It's not. It's not the first. The last problem we did after he lost him, I was like, this is not great. I do. Yeah. I do think he does better in the cinematic, not microphone. Sure. Like live ones because he probably does them a few times and like it's like, yeah, we can, we can polish it, right? Yes. But he's not the best talker, right? He's a, he's a sea talker at best. Okay. What if we went down the sting route with Darby where it's, he loses a bunch, right? And then he comes out, delivers a promo, he's like, what the hell? I'm done. I'm done trying to do this for you guys. It's not working, right? And it's not necessarily quote unquote a heel turn, but he just kind of goes away, right? And then you just see him. He doesn't talk. You don't know what he's about, right? And you kind of get that mysterious vibe again, right? Or he just starts showing up and he starts winning again. And then all of a sudden you get, because like, if they're thinking of at some point, making him world champion, whatever. But like, you got to give me a reason to believe and you've already played the, well, he's an underdog and he just wins by the skin of his teeth thing, the first TNT title run. So like, I need something more here. So if he goes on this big losing streak and then kind of shuts himself off from the world, I think that's a very interesting dynamic where now I'm invested in the character and less about how is he going to try to kill himself every single week. You know what I mean? So just something I would think about in terms of where are you going with the story here, but I don't think he wins this match. No, I think Brody King wins. I think they're gonna think it's a weird choice to beat him is Brody King. Like, I get like the size thing, but are you pushing Brody to something? Yeah, interesting. Next up, we have a singles match for the AEW TNT Championship. Yeah, we do. We got Jack Perry defending against, I don't speak English, Shabbat. Okay. Yeah. I feel like this one's very similar to the one we just talked about where I think Shabbat is going to slap him a lot and kill him a lot, and then Jack Perry is going to win. Yeah, I don't know what the plan is for the TNT Championship, in the elite group. Yeah, it just exists, kinda. Yeah, I don't know. Until someone beats, beats up the elite. Just wait for Edge to get back. Just trying to get back. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Sue? I don't know what's going on with him, but you know what it is? I just, again, these are some of the harder matches because like they just do a quick angle on a show, and then you're like, "Oh, Mac, bam." Okay, sure, right? Like I'm sure the in-ring stuff is fine, but it's like, yeah. This match should be a lot better than, like, it's not that it should be because it should be fine. Yeah, I think it'll be fine. It'll be like a good match. Yeah, I think it'll be fine. Yeah. Alright, we have a women's world title match, so we have a rhyme defending against either, because it's going to be decided on Wednesday, or Tuesday, it's titled Tuesday. I'm sure you got to say on Tuesday. The winner between Baker DMD and Willow Nightingale. So, Willow wins. So, Willow wins. And then more eye wins. I actually love the matchup. I thought that was a really, I thought when they teased it, I was like, "Oh, yeah, okay. That sounds like a great feud, right?" Maybe even a little early, considering all the investment that they have in Willow, but yeah, no, I'm looking forward to this one. I think it should be good. I don't think Brett's going to get the win here. No, I've shot. I low-key think that she's not long for this world in AEW. I don't know why. I just kind of get that feeling. Like, I don't think she's getting reactions anymore. You can read a lot of backstage stuff, too, or, you know, like, it's not going well. I don't know. That's just me. Ryan Ray retains. I think they're just setting up for Tony to come back. Yeah, they're just kind of having title rings for her to come back, which is nice that she can just come back like the first week back. Sure. Yeah, she's overseas six months. Yeah, that's fine. Ryan Ray wins, retains. Yes. All right, tag team match. So, we have the Young Bucks taking on, which it was a weird way to get here, but I understand how they got here to private party. Yeah, really. So, like, because the weird thing was, so on a rampage, they did the six-man with Perry, and I think Shabbat was in that. I mean, it makes sense. And they did the same finish to the 2019, where they upset them, where Nick was going to, they were going for the pile driver thingy for Moudougar, and Mark Quinn gets the roll up on them. So, I was like, okay, though, you just pin them. So, you guys get shot. However, they first had to win a triple threat match on collision between the House and Black, and the conglomerate, I think it was, or something like that. One of these teams, conglomeration, I don't even think it was that, but it was somebody. They want us three-way to qualify for this match, instead of just giving them the match, because they pin them, but they get this match. Their tag division is really hurting right now. Like, I don't think they intended this when they did that casino. What's it called? Casino Royal. Yeah, you know, talking about, right? That were fans of, like, the match format itself. It really showed their ugly head of, like, "Oh, we have no teams that are ready." Like, we were relying so heavily on, like, FTR, Bucks, Lucha Bros, for so long, that was like, "Oh, well, now we don't have anybody." This is, it's very awkward. I understand they're trying to revisit something. Cool. I don't think private parties over. I don't think they've done enough to get them to make me feel like, like, we don't have that acclaim level where, like, maybe just give it to them, right? Like, and then they do. This doesn't feel like that. This feels very much like, "Yep, Bucks want to work private party. We're trying to revisit something. They're both healthy again, because I know they've been having some injury issues." Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I think the match is going to be really good. Yeah, what Bucks are showing up? Yeah, I think, yeah, that's a good point. Is the, the Workhorse, Will Osprey, Kyle Fletcher, Bucks showing up, or is it the FTR, the acclaimed Bucks? I think they need to start taking some of these singles guys that aren't doing a whole lot and start putting them in tag teams and start kind of infusing some of that. Yeah, I do, too. Also, I just think, if we're being honest here, I think the outrunners just need to probably get them at one line at. You know what, they're the hot team? You know, you could do instead, though, is build them. Hey, maybe they're in the Ring of Honor tag title or something, right? Give them some, like, do something a little bit different. Instead of having Sami Guevara and Dustin Rhodes as your Ring of Honor tag champion, we're just like, "What the fuck are we doing?" Yeah. I actually think I'm not the biggest fan of having, like, tournaments every five minutes. I do think a nice, like, eight-man, 16-man tournament or something with a whole bunch of teams would really help out, have some, like, banger matches. And you could just be like, "Oh, do it, do it in a way, right where you're like, "Hey, like, I want to be in this tag team. Hey, we're going to join forces and, like, go win the title." Yeah, do the same thing they did with the, however they got Cole and MJF together, where they randomly pick teams that you're like, "All right, now you guys are a random team." But you put a lot of those singles guys that aren't doing anything, and you're like, "You guys are a team now." That's how we got Seamus and Cesaro, right? You're just like, "Let's put them together. Let's see how that..." Yeah. I do think there's a way where you can stimulate your tag division a little bit and make a little more interesting where you go, "Okay, maybe half the bracket is established teams, like the private parties and the outrunner." Yeah. And then you've got those that have, where it's the wild cards, like you're saying, and you're just like, "Two guys, I guess, we're together now." It's like, "I only like you." And then you have those guys that maybe have feuded before, like, Daniel Garcia and a Wheeler Yuda together, and you're like, "Oh, shit. Now, who knows this rather than each other?" Yeah. And then maybe they're a thing for... There's a million different ways to skin this cat. Yeah. No, I agree. I do think... But I do think this is like an in-betweener. Yeah. We've had a lot of in-betweeners today. I think it's right now. The Bucks are only champions because they don't have another team ready to go. Yes, I agree. Yeah. So, yeah. Bucks win. Well, they need, like, six teams to go, because even if they... Whoever beats the Bucks needs people to fight. Yes, I agree. So, then we have our... I'm going to say Domain Event. It won't call Main Event. It will open the show, probably. Yeah. To catch Ska, Ricochet, and Osprey for the International Championship. I need to catch you to win this match. He's not gonna, but I need him to. The thing I don't like about this is I think... Not that... I think Ska's just actually going to win. Yeah. I think he's going to pin Ricochet to win. Oh, yeah. Sure. Which makes me upset, because I feel like Osprey's the type of champion where it's, like, beat me for it. Yeah. Like, like, don't take... Like, it's like the coward way out of the three way to be like, "We're gonna keep a little strong." But I'm like, I think it's better, especially for everything Will's been doing with, like, fighting Swerve and being okay taking that loss and losing the MJ. Like, he's okay taking losses because he's Will Osprey. Well, I'll take a loss. I'll add... I'll add another level to that is, you're gonna pin Ricochet immediately. Yeah. Right? Like, again, you're booking yourself into a corner where you go. Okay, so you're now established that Ricochet is not on that level. Yeah. So you can't... You can't... You know what I mean? You have to now work your way back up out of that hole that you're digging yourself. Mm-hmm. My other concern is if to catch... I want to catch you to win. Yeah. Okay. But I don't want to catch you to win. Because I don't want Will to go on the continent on a classic and win. Yeah. Because... And I feel like that's where they're going. Where it's like we're gonna get Okada and him again, you know what I mean? I actually 100% agree with you on that. I do think that's where they might go. Yeah. The weird thing is, it's like to catch you, it's been like a middleman. Yeah. Because they did the thing with the international world. Sure. Like, he's mad at Will for doing the Kyle Fletcher tag match. Yep, sure. And then, like, the same segment, they literally turned around and Okada was there and he got face-to-face with Okada and was like, "dog, I'm better than you." And I'm like, "So you're on a thing with Okada." Right. And then he did the, it was the last pay-per-view. He came in and, like, didn't he, like, beat up Okada or broke up a thing with Okada or something? Like, he interacted with Okada multiple times at this point, Takeshka has. So I'm like, "You've been doing stuff with Okada, but now you're just gonna jump in and win the international." Like, it's a very, like, I thought the plan that they were gonna do was, Takeshka and Okada at World's End. And Takeshka could take the title end of the year, end of the year with, like, your new big... Yeah. You've established a new star to get the Continental Classic title off of Okada, so let him go do other world title shit. And now you've established Takeshka as a guy who can win the big one. Who, like, goes, like, undefeated or maybe only loses a lot of the Classic however. Well, here's the thing, has... Oh, lose to Okada in the first time, right? Yeah. And then you get that rematch, where you go, "Okay, now he finally overcomes." Yeah. But now it feels like, "Well, let's get the title off of Will so that Will can then go win the Continental Classic." And I go, "Okay, well, first off, Will doesn't need to win the Continental Classic." That's number one. Number two, I understand, you're over exposing Will is the best way I can say this. And I understand that people are like, "Well, you can't get tired of it." I go, "Not necessarily, you can't get tired of it." But it's, at some point, everyone's gonna go, so every time Will's in anything, he's winning for the first time. Any first time anything now, you tell me the next time Will challenges for the World Championship, he's not winning it. At some point, he doesn't need every belt. He doesn't need every championship. You don't need to make this long list of resumes, right? It just seems a little bit like we're forcing Will, like, "Will's our guy, Will's our guy, Will's our guy, Will's our guy, Will's our guy." We already know that. Yeah. We don't... I don't disagree at all. I think he... I mean, at worst, I think he should just retain at the show. And then let it breathe. Let him do... Again, I still think the Kyle Fletcher thing could be a great story. I still think... Still story there. But yeah, I would be cool with Takeshka winning this. I just hate the idea of him not beating Will for it. Because I think his whole thing is like, "I'm the best, beat me." And so if you beat Ricochet, I just think it flatlines that a little bit. And Will is at such a point where it's like the second anyone beats him. Guy. Right. Exactly. The second Swerve beat him. Legend. That was the match I put him on the map really. And here's the other problem with if you're going to put Will in the Continental Classic. And if you have him win it, right? Say he beats Okada. Okay, great. But now what you're doing is if Takeshka loses Okada in the tournament and then beats Okada later, you're making a star. If Osprey beats Okada, what are you doing? You've made nobody. You've already got two guys that are the most over people you have. So what is that accomplishing? And then furthermore, if Okada then goes and challenges for the World Championship, right? In this weird back, where it's right away, it's like, but Osprey is the Continental Champion and he's better than you. And he should be World Champion. Like, it just... There's a million problems with it, right? It just doesn't work the same. I think you should use this Continental Classic to make somebody. And I think nobody is more ready for the audience to go, "Oh yeah, here we go." Is Takeshka. I don't know of another guy that you've made in so many big matches and had him lose all of them that you are not somebody's not ready to go, "Yep, this is the guy. Let's go." This doesn't make any sense. Osprey could lose the next 50 matches in a row and nobody would care. So the impact is a lot more not there for me. Yeah, so... I don't know. We'll see. I'm gonna go Osprey just... I'm gonna hope it's Osprey, but I'm worried it's Takeshka. Like, again, I would be very happy if he won because he deserves it. If there's anybody on this roster who deserves a championship run, it is Takeshka. Like, 100%. Yeah. But in terms of future stuff, where I go, "I don't want to see that right now. You don't need that." Yeah. And I'm on board with the whole... I think... Osprey would fit this bill, but he doesn't need it. I think every Continental Champion should be someone who won on one with no outside interference. I don't know who the fuck's beating that guy. That is such a great mother effing point. I think that's because, again, it establishes who you are and what that championship represents, right? It's taking it true to form where it's like, every time he's in the ring and it's against somebody else where you go either, "Oh, he's definitely not losing because he's clearly the best." Or you're up against it, you gotta go, "I don't know what to do because I'm so confused because like this." And I think more importantly, what you're saying through that is, you want somebody that's Continental Champion who can go with anybody and put on a banger of a match, right? Which is why I'm like, Osprey fits that bill obviously, but I do, because like the second Ocado won it, I go, "Who the fuck's beating him when I won?" Straight up, because you see in Japan for two and a half years, he was world champion and he was the guy of like, "No one's watching this guy for two years." And then you hit Takeshika who finally overcomes that guy and he goes, "Okay, who the fuck's beating this guy?" Especially when it's a one-on-one, no outside interference, it's like, "Yeah, you can do shenanigans and you can pull the ropes." But when it's no interference because what the title is, who the fuck's beating Takeshika who finally overcomes that guy and he goes, "Okay, then who the fuck's beating this guy?" Especially when it's a one-on-one, no outside interference, it's like, "Yeah, you can do shenanigans and you can pull the ropes." And then it establishes Takeshika as a guy where you go, "Who's beating Takeshika? Who can beat this guy?" Where when it's just you and him, how are you going to beat him? No outside, nothing. And then it's, I love that point because I think that's so important, is establishing, and here's the other thing too, Takeshika because you've had him lose before, right? Where, "Okay, maybe it's not the champion for the entire year. Maybe he drops it in six months to somebody." Right? Like, where you have that ability to go, "Oh shit, somebody just beat Takeshika." Right? And now we're trying to establish that person, right? And there's a million different ways to go about it, but to your point, they all have to be, like, "I want to see that lineage." That's why I was a little upset that Eddie won it, the first time, because I was like, "Man, Brian, as your first guy, he established this, and be the guy where you're just like, "Yep, this is the dude where this is the wrestler's wrestling championship." You know, hopefully they're building off of that, because I love, I love the continental title, I love the tournament, the whole premise around it, it's one of their top five ideas they've ever done. Yeah, it really is. It's really fantastic. Yeah, and when it starts up in three weeks or whatever the fuck is going to happen, it makes collision dynamite so bust watch, because you just put... There's stakes every single time. There's stakes every time, and they just put like the best, maybe not the best 12. No, but they put 12 that you know, listen, we're going to give them 20 minutes, and you know you get 20 minutes, and you know you're going to go 18 of those 20. And again, you lean into that tag line of, "This is where the best wrestlers wrestle, this is the time to show it." Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I'm for it. I forgot we had one more, I just switched over. That's fine, I have a big point on this. World's not on match, Foxley and Brian. Yeah, I forgot that we had that one. Okay, so, Moxley, Brian, I'm going to ask you a question, because I saw this on Twitter, and I've been thinking it for a while, but I didn't want to say it, because I didn't want everyone to be like, "Oh, you're just a WWE guy." Okay. Oh, great. Okay, so excited to hear it. Is Shane McMahon working for AW? Is Shane the guy, is Shane the higher power behind the Moxley group? Because I, like, when you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world, man. Like, there's a good chance, like, not sold 100%, I need, and this, it might ruin the whole aesthetic of it, I need, like, a sign. Like, you know, when Punk was coming in, and they were always like, "Oh, you're going to drop a pipe bomb," and everyone was, like, hinting, but I need them to, like, hint at it. Because they have hinted at it outside doing that one weird, I released a video of us talking in a conference room three months ago or so at an airport. Like, if they hint at it, maybe, but they have hinted at it first. So, it would break the internet. Oh, my God. If Shane McMahon walked out on AW television. Would be, I don't know what people would do, people would be like, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm McMahon, not on WWE television, holy shit." In these fireballs. Crazy. Now, let's flip that coin. Is it a good idea? Absolutely not. Okay. Because here's what the narrative is going to be, and tell me if I'm wrong on this. Okay, as I see Aaron Rodgers throw away more footballs than I can ever imagine. Okay. Doesn't it feel like, then Tony, it's like, if you're the AW Hater, right, I'm going to put my AW Hater cap on. I know people are like, "Well, don't you always have it on, but it's fine." I like, I know people don't believe, I like AW. I just have fundamental flaws with some of the shit that they do. It's funny. I think me and you have the same, like, I like AW as much as you like WWE. And I like WWE as much as you like AW and the exact same, like, version of it. Yeah. Like, you're more into, like, I want high quality matches through and through the out, right? Yeah. I'm a little more old school and I want things to matter, right? That's, you know, but anyway, put that cap on and you go, so you need to make man to make things right. You need to make man, so you're going to bring in Shane to help fix the dropping ratings, which they are dropping. The attendance numbers are dropping and you go, "Okay, so why is Shane here? It's Vince coming? What about this?" Like, I just, I don't know how much positive things are going to come out of that in the long run. In the short term, if Shane McMahon walked out on AW television and was aligned with John Moxley. And that crew. Holy shit, balls. That'd be some fun stuff. Would be insane. Yeah. I think it would be a holy shit moment, the likes of which we haven't seen probably since Shane showed up on WCW. Because people are like, "Holy shit, wait a minute. Oh shit." Right? Like, that's pretty crazy. Or when Vince announced, "Oh, I bought WCW." And you're like, "Oh." Yeah. You know? I think, I think, like, in terms of recent time, I think the only reaction that might be bigger and always because they planned it so perfectly is like the punk coming back. Yeah. Which one? Punk WWE. The AW, because that was the first time he's ever come back. The AW, I think, people were like, "He's coming back, but, like, we don't know when." And so when they did it, after the credits and everything was crazy. But the AW one was like, "We never thought he'd be back in wrestling, period." So, like, that reaction is crazy. But I think that reaction would be, like, watching. I don't know. If they hit the, "Here comes the money," and he walked out, I think people would lose their mind. You think it, I, I, and I don't know, right? Like, I don't know if that's where they're going. It just feels like he's taking over, like, we gotta take over this company, right? I'm doing things, you know, you forced me to do this, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it feels very like I'm gonna kill AW because I need to save AW type vibes. And what better way to kill AW than bring in a McMahon? Yeah. Let you know what I mean? Like, the store, I could, man, I could go for days on the story for it. But I just don't know if that's the best thing for overall. I don't know. It's weird. I don't know. If there wasn't Twitter, I would say it is the best thing they could do. But Twitter is, Twitter's gonna be merciless. Like, a, a sisple, sometimes it's terrible. So, like, every, every bot with, like, seven followers will, like, say it's the worst thing ever. And why is everyone ever watching it? Sure. But I do think, like, every JD from New York, I hate that guy. That guy sucks. I blocked him. I blocked him on Twitter because he shows up in my, like, my suggested feed. He's annoying. He just says things to get a reaction. And I fall for it. So I just go, nope, can't do it anymore. Get out. Because you're an idiot. I go, you're an idiot. Like, you've never worked in the industry. Now, I haven't either, right? So it's not, I'm not saying this to, like, 'cause, like, I've done it. But what I am saying is, you're a jackass and you have no insider information on anything. You're just a fan, like, the rest of it. You can speculate and talk about storylines and why, but I love a guy. Anyway, I always had problems with people who go, like, someone's objectively wrong on a subjective product. Yeah, correct, correct. It's always like, I'll be like, I don't like this movie. But if someone else is like, oh, it's my favorite movie ever, I'm not gonna be like, you're wrong. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? 'Cause I'm like, it's subjectively, if you really like it, you really like it. It's fine. Like, whatever. Except if you like Spider-Man 3. Yeah. And you are effectively wrong, but it's fine. But, like, I, I, and he does it all the time. And he's like, if you guys like this, you're stupid. I'm like, well, that's not fair. It's not fair because, like, if you're not the biggest... You believe Hulk Hogan said his prayers and ages of vitamins every day instead of taking steroids for, like, 20 years. Yeah. So, you're calling the whole fundamental fan base here. Anyway, long start, any of it. Going back to the actual match, though, I'm really looking forward to this match. Yeah, I think, I think Moxie needs to win. Yeah. And I think this, it's a great little run here where I think you get the point where Brian can maybe prolong it a little bit, maybe, right? We figure out a way to get him in this true, like, hey, I'm going away for a year type of situation or six bonds or whatever. Or, like, you just kill them. Yeah. I mean, a storyline purpose? I think... I see a world. Yeah. And throw a flag, but I think you'll, I think you'll kind of be on board with this. Okay. Where I think Moxie wins. Yep. Holds his title basically all off next year. Okay. And they're just killing everybody. And either Adam Cole comes back and saves the day around. Oh. The Undisputed Kingdom is baby faces now. Yeah. They're saying the world. No. I think they get to a point where, like, around all in, all out this time of year next year. Sure. You're, like, I've beaten everybody. There's no one. Brian comes back. You know what I mean? I've been in the really long game. Did you play the really long game with it? Because he's out for you. Can I keep you out for a year? Can I add something to that? Sure. Yeah. That Mox, if you're going purely storytelling and not going to give Brian that quote unquote "feel good last match" moment, right, because he kind of had that when he won the title. Yeah. So if you're, if you're thinking if Brian's like, no, I just want to go, right, and I just want to be done and I want to, I want to put Mox in the best position to succeed leaving. Moxie needs to kill Brian. I agree. You know what I mean? And then Brian goes out on stretcher. Yeah. And everyone's like, oh my God. He just killed him. And then we don't hear nothing that entire time. Yeah. And then we get to that? Absolutely. Brian is the ultimate Mr. E.W. guy right now. Like he's like, I love this place. Nothing wrong with it. Like blah, blah, blah. Tony loves me. We're the best Russell. We're the best Russell. Like, all I want to do is be A.W. blah, blah. He loves A.W. So when it's like, we're so anti-AEW for Moxie's group, who's Mr. A.W. I would love it. I would love it if it's like you come back and you get those, those vignettes of like, who's coming? He's got this really scraggly ass beer. Yeah. He looks like he's just been in hibernation for like eight months and you're like, oh, I don't know. Yeah. And you get him the announcement of him coming back next year's Russell dream in Tacoma, Washington. Right. Yeah. Super awesome. But the other way I see the way I see this match happening is Brian comes out hot early, right? Fires crazy, crazy, crazy. That Moxie takes over, chokes him out and we're out the door. Yeah. I don't think it's actually a long match. I don't think so either. I shot if it goes over like 20 minutes. Yeah. 25 minutes. So either. No, I think Brian's been burning the candle at both ends. In fact, when he was like, oh, we're going to do this tag match with Wheeler and me and I was like, Jesus, he's wrestling again. I was like, my goodness. They're really trying to scream and it's many matches. We can. My man has like no neck anymore. I don't know how you're so terrible. All right. I do. It would be fun. Let's get to WWE's bad blood pay per view. I do want to talk quickly about the CW debut of NXT. Did you have a chance to watch that? I watched. I actually tuned in and watched it just to kind of see what the chains were going to be. Got new NXT championships on which I thought were neat. I thought we had a great opener with Julia and Roxanne Perez. The finish, I thought was kind of dumb where it was like, Cordier's like, look, I got boobs. But outside of that, I thought the match was really good. You knew as basically as soon as Julia didn't win the NXT women's title, I go, okay, so trick is obviously winning the world championship here, which I thought was fine, I guess. Thoughts on the CW debut, anything? They got a little bit of a new look, right? They're going to be traveling again, which I thought was interesting. >> Yeah, they're not colorful, they're like black and white or something. Yeah, I think it's a nice changing of the guard, like the theory. >> I like the fact that they've embraced the thought of, we're going to change the look as we go through eras, if that makes any sense, like they're like, hey, we're going to go, we went to this colorful thing because we're trying to just introduce a whole bunch of new stars. Now, let's focus a little bit, and now we're a little more great. >> I hope we're in a hybrid of black and yellow and one of the colorful times where you're introducing new people and kind of getting people from the ground up, but you're also have established new established guys who can kind of carry maybe like with the Julia signing, whatnot, like getting a few independent people. >> They have another lady coming in from Australia that they've been teasing as well that I'm pretty excited. Her name is escaping me. >> And then they signed the fucking, the Red Pro check, didn't she? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Isn't she coming in at one point? >> I think so too. >> Yeah, I think you might be right. >> Yeah. >> The one that fought Mercedes at that one show a couple of months ago. >> Yeah, I think you're right. >> So, like, Vickour, whatever her name was. >> Oh, yeah. >> Stephanie Vickour, yeah. >> Yeah, thank you. My goodness. >> Yeah, so yeah, she'll be coming in too. So I think they're just going to have a lot of, you know, independent scene talent, kind of slowly. >> Their win is a vision. >> And then C's low-key loaded. >> Unbelievable. >> They have a lot of people. They're just strapped up, like Julia, Roxanne, Vakur, this other chick that they're debuting, Cora Jade. >> Yeah, I will say, them having the women's North American thing. >> Works. >> Not the biggest fan. >> Yeah. >> But it does work when you have like 50 women that can win. >> Well, and here's the thing. You know what it does too, and I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to. It's like you have the North American title as a true, like, this is for the new girls. >> Yeah. >> Like to establish and learn to fight for something while the main event established women's talent. >> Yeah. >> Are going to fight for the women's talent. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? >> Yeah. >> Like I was like, I kind of dig it. It does actually work. I was really nervous, by the way, the bad blood thing was going to be the women's in our continental championship, and I was like, oh God, no, please, no, please, no, please, no. >> But yeah, NXT is fine. >> Yeah. >> Other thing real fast before we get, actually, I have two quick points before we get to bad blood, okay? Number one, machine guns. Motorcy machine guns. >> Yeah. >> Come a smackdown. Not going NXT. Thoughts on that. >> Yeah, rumor mill was that they were going NXT. >> Right. >> They can't come. >> Yeah. >> Going a smackdown. I dig it. I'm all for it. >> Yeah. >> Looking forward to the GOD. Motorcy machine. I think DIY motorcy machine guns is going to hear it. >> Dude. That's the one. >> That's the match. >> Yeah. >> All the other ones. Like, not private party. Oh my God. >> Street profits. >> Street profits. >> You are so racist. I can't even. >> They have profit. >> Yeah. >> In their name. >> There's a lot of P's. >> Yeah. >> There's a lot of P's in wrestling with tag teams. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Street profits. I'm not like super excited. I think it'll be good. >> Yeah. >> A GOD. >> Sure. >> Okay. >> But DIY. >> Last question before we actually get to bad blood. Because this is something that's kind of infestring. I think we've been kind of talking around this topic. >> No. >> I'm just kidding. >> All right. We have now seen in the past three weeks of television. Up come in and up come. Is the world title match tomorrow? >> Monday. >> Monday. >> You've seen a United States championship match. You've seen a Intercontinental Championship title change. >> Mm-hm. >> And you just saw a three-way ladder match for the tag titles on SmackDown. Which was really good by the way. I thought it was solid. >> Yeah. >> And now you're seeing a world title match on Raw. >> Yeah. >> Now we've talked about how, and this show had only five matches on the card. Right? Still went and managed to go four hours to figure that math out. >> It was unbelievable. >> Honestly. Do you, would you have preferred those four matches being on Bad Blood? Or do you like the fact that now WWE is trying to spread out some of these bigger marquee matches where you go, hey, look, yeah, listen, is everything on Raw, must watch? Clearly not. But they're giving you something on a regular basis. >> Yeah. >> Where you can go, hey, this is interesting. This piques my interest, right? Like we talked last week or I was like, I am genuinely interested in watching. Andrade versus Eli Knight for the U.S. title. I tuned in to watch that match. I tuned in to watch J.U.S.O. versus Braun. I tuned in to SmackDown. I watched SmackDown start to finish this week. I know. Give me a frickin' purple heart. Because I want to watch a triple threat tag match. Because I was like, oh, okay, shit. We haven't seen that in a long time. Do you at least, I know you understand the approach for sure. But what are your thoughts on the approach for WWE where it's like, you know, we don't really need these matches on Bad Blood. Because to their point, they do have five main stories going. And you're putting marquee matches on Braun's SmackDown. My problem is not with five match cards, necessarily. >> Okay. >> I do wish sometimes. >> Yeah, there's definitely times where we could have definitely put a match. >> We could have put six or seven. >> Yeah, sure. >> But I don't mind five match cards. >> Okay. >> I hate five match cards. I go four hours. >> Fair. That is my critique of the five match. >> Okay. >> If you were NXT TakeOver back in 2018. >> Yeah, right. >> And you were doing five matches in two hours? >> Yeah. >> Cool. >> No problems. >> Okay. >> But I just hate that it's like five matches, three and a half hours. It was nine o'clock Eastern time when the bell rang for the tag match. And I'm like, why are we three hours in? >> Yeah, sure. >> To the show. I don't mind because AEW does it all the time. They put ricochet osprey on TV to get people in. >> Sure. >> Well, Cada and Brian Danielson. I'm free television. >> Well, I'm four days promotion. >> Yeah, exactly. I'm cool putting these matches on TV because if you're someone who watches the TV every week, I usually catch the clips and stuff. >> Yeah. >> But if you watch it every week, it gives it something interesting to watch because the shows usually aren't very good. >> Well, because you're just like, okay, we're just setting out for the pay per view. Now you're getting pay offs on television. >> Decent matches on television. >> Yeah. >> So I don't mind it. >> Yeah. >> I just wish the match. Sometimes I think, I don't see any probably putting Andrade in LA Night on a paper view. >> Sure. >> So she went to the Friday before. It's always the one that irks me the most. I'm like, okay, so if it was a day before, especially when they go to, like, bash it to Berlin, they go to Germany. So SmankDown's in Germany. >> Right. >> And I'm like, so why can't the US title be on the pay per view? Why is it the night, like in Germany, but on Friday, on SmankDown? >> Sure. >> Like those are the ones where I'm like, I don't understand why. >> I'm upset the US title was defended on foreign soil. Okay. It's the United States Championship. >> I'm just kidding. >> Yeah. But it's stuff like that, where I'm like, if it's like this, like, or the Goonther one, it's happening tomorrow or Monday night, like you could have slid it back and headed on a pay per view or whatever, but it doesn't bother me, but four hour, five match shows. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. Let's get to it. We're an hour and a half in. Let's get to bad blood and let's get out of here. >> Bad blood. >> Didn't think this show was solid, though. All things considered. >> The marquee stuff delivered, the middle where we'll talk about. >> Yeah. The marquee stuff definitely hit. I'm going to tell you a really funny story when we get to this main event. >> Okay. >> But we'll get there. >> Okay. >> It really annoyed me. But it wasn't anything WWE-related. >> Okay. >> It was watching experience. >> Okay. >> So we had bad blood from Atlanta, Georgia in the state farm arena. >> Mm-hmm. >> Had every Atlanta legend possible in this. >> Oh my God. >> Good Lord Jesus. Every, I feel like UFC, where they were like in between every flight. They were like, here's 17 Hall of Famers, they're just sitting here. >> Mm-hmm. >> Cool. >> Nobody did anything better to do, huh? >> Yeah, I was like, you guys, I don't just want to want bad blood, huh? >> Yeah. >> Hellness all match opened, because. >> It did. >> We have reasons. >> Yeah. >> So, Punk and Drew McIntyre, his match was 31 minutes, 23 seconds. He gets a 9.4 out of 10 on cage bench here. >> Yeah. >> That was pretty slow. >> I thought this was great. I really did. I thought this was a really good job by both guys. I love the fact that we got color early. I said before that it needed it. >> Yep. >> And we got there. I thought it told a really good story. I thought Drew's bump on the steel steps was just, oh God, just brutal. >> Yeah. >> No, I thought they did a really nice job on this match. I thought it was a great blow off. I'm really, really interested to kind of see where we go from here now on this. I think that there's a lot of momentum both ways. I thought this delivered. I thought this is what a Hell in a Cell should be, right? And so now we should not see a Hell in a Cell match for like a year. Like, we got to a point where we made the match mean something again, right? And we've now established again that Punk can go what he wants to go. I think Drew is working like a top five talent in the world right now. I don't think many people can touch Drew character wise. I thought this really delivered. I thought this was a great crescendo to a great view that's been going on for literally like a year. >> Yeah, no, I thought it was really good. I think this is Punk's legitimate second best match. >> Yes, it's the best WWE match since he's been back. I think this and the dog collar match with MGF are his two best matches. And then there is a massive drop off. >> There's a follow up with the Dynamite match with Moxley where he loses in six seconds. Perfect. >> No. >> I was like, I guess. >> No. >> I was just saying maybe like the Darby match, like his first match back. None of the Adam Page matches, those were terrible. >> Yeah, it also happened at like 1 AM, so I kind of don't remember. >> Yeah, I was sleeping. >> I woke up and I went, all right, sweet, I got to work tomorrow. >> Yeah, so that match happened. >> Yeah. >> That was fun. >> Yeah. >> And then we weighed about 45. >> Yeah, Mike, when we got sued, I showered. >> Yeah, then we had a women's title match. >> Yes. >> Nia Jax and Bayley. >> Yeah. >> It happened. >> We got a 5.6 out of 10, went 14 minutes, 12 seconds. >> Let's say four minutes, it did not go four minutes. >> 14 minutes, 12 seconds. Nia Jax said to her, Karana at one point, which was just crazy to watch. >> Yeah. >> And then. >> She tried. >> She did try. And then we had Tiffany Shannon run out at like the 11 minute part, walks in, teased it. Definitely like. >> Missed Bayley. >> Missed Bayley, but then hit her when the ref kind of looked, but then the ref was like, I'm actually not supposed to look. So let me turn her away. >> Yeah, what happened? >> She calls her Pam on SmackDown, by the way, during a promo. >> Oh. >> Tiffany called Bayley by her real name during the promo, and I was like, did she just call her Pam? >> Yeah. >> And I'm like, what is happening here? >> Yeah. >> I go, Tiffany's having a rough couple of days. She's botched a couple of things, where I'm like, maybe this is why she hasn't cashed in yet. We need to polish this up a little bit. >> Also, not the biggest fan. I know I get it. One of the biggest WrestleMania moments is Rollins cashing in. >> Sure. >> This fan of you cashing in middle of a match, making it a three way, because it just makes it harder for yourself. >> Nope, I agree. >> Like I was like, I don't know why you just wait for Bayley to win it or Nia to win it or whatever, and then come out hit him and it was owned out to one on one match. It's just something that always kind of bugs me. >> Yeah. >> I thought this was one of Nia's better matches. I think Bayley's doing a great job of getting the most out of Nia, quite frankly. I knew this match was going to be a tough sell here. I thought they got enough time. I thought they did a nice job, all things considered. I think they're teasing the tension between Nia and Tiffany, clearly trying to get Tiffany to be a baby face at some point here. I'm expecting the Nia turn, right, where she turns on Tiffany. But yeah, no, I thought this was pretty solid. I thought it kept Bayley strong. Makes Nia look like the heel champion still, gets a good strong finish. Nothing majorly wrong with the match wasn't like, I'm going to go back and rewatch it 12 times. But I thought this was really solid and all things. It's as good as a Nia Jax match is going to be. Let's put it that way. >> Damien Priest, Finn Balor was next, 6.13 out of 10, match with 12 minutes and 50 seconds with a nice solid Damien Priest one. >> Yeah, I thought Finn should have got the win here. This match technically, very good, right, Priest super over, you know, Finn's super over as well. I'm interested, again, feel like is this the end? Not the end? >> Yeah. >> Felt like the end. >> Felt like the end. >> Yeah, because I'm like, oh, he just beats him. >> Sure. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, eh. So left a little bit to be desired there. But yeah, I don't know. Just okay. >> Yeah, it wasn't great. It wasn't awful. It was just a solid match. >> Yeah. >> And we had the WWE Women's World title match in a shark cage, not the title in a shark cage. There was a human in the shark cage. His name was Don McPaster, who's in the shark cage. Really, Ripley, Liv Morgan, I totally forgot because of the sell that the shark cage wasn't over the ring. >> I didn't see you. I was very confused. I'm like, so he's going to have to throw or something. That's a far from throw. >> I know. I was like, it didn't really work for me as well. >> Yeah, no. >> Like, dopping. >> They tried with the camera angle. Kind of have them. >> Yeah. >> I didn't think the spot where he fell out of the cage. I thought that was my accident. >> I did, too. And I was like, my gosh. I was like, oh, he's toxic. Oh, that's fantastic. I thought that was great. That was the best part of this match. >> I thought it was my accident. And then I was sitting there and I was like, no one's freaking out. So it must be. >> Yeah. >> I was like, because I feel like if he accidentally fell out, even if he was trained in, if he accidentally fell out, they'd be like, we're getting you down, but he just kind of hung there. And I was like, okay. >> Can't imagine if he just fell. I mean, it wasn't super high, but that would hurt like a bitch. >> Yeah. >> And then the ending of this match, I think, just kind of- >> There was a bunch. It had to have been. Somebody fucked up somewhere because it very much felt like she was supposed to interfere cost for the title and pinner. Instead, it was a DQ. >> Yeah. >> Clearly something happened here where there was a mistiming. >> Yeah. >> It was funny, yeah. Because like, Ria gets the kind of stick when Dom's hanging and searches nail on him with it. And I was like, cool. And then Raquel comes back. So she's the returner over here so that she hits her, the ref standing right next to them. >> Oh, and then there was a point too where Ria is like, hey, I'm gonna be right back. I'm gonna go beat him up. >> And the ref goes, that's fair. >> Yeah. >> And I'm like- >> And then she's out there for damn near like three minutes. >> Yeah, she goes, give me a minute. >> And he goes. >> And then he was like, I'm not gonna count you out. And I'm like, okay. >> Yeah. >> So there's no count up here, I guess, because she asked for it. >> It's wrestling, Mike. We've been the rules that we need to. >> I guess so. But yeah. So then, yeah. >> It's illegal to jump all the top rope. >> Yeah, I guess, technically. It's illegal to go over the top rope, like, what, dude, the moment that finish comes into play, like, you obviously didn't watch a ton of 80s wrestling, but like, that was a finish was. >> Yeah. >> Oh, Dusty Rhodes beat Trick Flair. No, the referee is calling it dead because two minutes ago, Dusty threw Rick over the top rope and that's a disqualification. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But yeah, so Raquel shows up and then like awkwardly like covers. >> Yeah, puts her on top, puts live on top. >> The bell already raining. >> Yeah. >> It's a close to funk of like total. >> Very clunky. >> Very clunky. >> I don't think this match delivered. >> No. >> Exactly. >> And so I don't know if it's they're trying to get it to where we're going to go Raquel and Rhea again. I don't know the point of, I understand, here's the thing, I actually really like the combination of Raquel and live together. >> Yeah. >> It feels very, and we talked about it even when Raquel was with Dakota, it feels very Shondiesel-like, where live, little smaller in stature, but she's the champ, right? And she's got this big heater behind her, Raquel was badass, get all that. But I'm still trying to figure out where she fits into right with everything. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have a lot of questions, I guess, so hopefully we'll get answered on Monday. >> I guess. >> Well, but yeah. >> This was not a great match. >> But this match kind of stunky, stunky, bad, bad. And then we had our main event, sorry, I'll stretch my nose. >> I was gonna say, it was like, it wasn't bad. >> Yeah, bloodline of Jacob Fattu and Sola Sequoleo, taking on Cody and Roman Reigns. This match went 25 minutes, 50 seconds. I still am not the biggest fan of Roman's new entrance. >> I don't like Roman's, I much prefer Roman's old entrance by like a thousand percent. I felt better this time, I don't know why it did. >> It did, it did a little bit, so I was watching this with my cousin, Andrew, right? I had him over watching this, and I was so excited for the Roman entrance. And he goes, do you think he's gonna use that new entrance? I went, and I got like really depleted because I was like, I love the head of the table entrance. Not a big fan of his summer slam, whatever this one is. So he came out and it sounded fine because it was like live kind of. Also the Cody one. >> I don't think they were doing the trumpets. >> I didn't get it. >> They didn't work with it at all. >> They did the whole song, and I was like, it doesn't sound like the song. And then when they hit his music, they like hit it at the wrong time. So there's a whole bunch of smoke going, and the whole thing went dark. >> They played it twice. >> But they played, yeah, they started it twice, and I was like, ugh, this is kind of rough to watch. So the entrances were not as good as normally predicted. >> They tried. I like the fact that Elise tried to make Bad Blood feel like a big show. Like this very much was like, you had five matches all with major stories that have been continuously kept up with, right? And nothing as Roger throws the game away. But yeah, from a match perspective, I thought this match was pretty solid. I don't think they did anything really like, holy shit, I thought Cody's bump through the table. I thought he overshot it at first, and I was like, uh-oh, you know, I thought the match was really solid. I don't think it was anything crazy, right? I know you had an issue with solo taking the pin. >> I don't know if it was an issue. I was just like, it just makes an unfairness. I don't know who else I would have rather take the pin. >> So like Roman and Cody aren't losing. >> I was like, Roman and Cody aren't probably losing. I was like, if anyone would lose, I guess Cody would have made sense for like solo to pin him to set something up if they were gonna do that at one point, but I don't think they were going to. I was like, I don't know who else would have taken this pin, but just solo take, I was like, you're literally just like the worst, like I was like, you literally just don't do anything. >> Yeah. >> And like not in a wrestling sense of like you're boring wrestler or anything like that is they're just, every time you're in a big match, you're just loose. >> Yeah, he's too passionate. >> Yeah, he's too passionate. >> Yeah, he's too passionate. >> And then but then on SmackDown, he's gonna come out with like the, uh-oh, uh-oh, the necklace. >> Ula Fala. >> Ula Fala. He's gonna come out with that, and I'm gonna be like, you literally got pinned by Roman. How do you still have it? >> No, I didn't have it. >> How did he get it originally? >> It didn't happen. Yeah. >> He stole out of his bag. >> Last year from tribal combat with JU, so they were like, I'm gonna put this on the line because you have to beat the person to take it. No, he just took it from him. >> Like you're applying too much logic here. >> So I was-- >> The longest short of it is the rock is back. >> Yeah. >> But that was the funny part I was gonna tell you. So I told Andrew this is how your time, I was like, if you go on the internet and you see something, don't say anything because I wanna be surprised, right? And I'm like, don't say, because we started the show like 10 minutes later. So I was like, if like someone don't use or you see a finish or something, because you just sat on your phone the entire time, don't tell me I wanna be surprised. He sits here, he pulls up Instagram live and the rock went live like right before he went out and he goes, is this the rock? And then I look at him and I was like, what do you mean? And he goes, nothing. >> And then the rock's music hits, and I went, you're just the one. >> Oh God, that's terrible. >> So yeah, but yeah, rock shows up, stands there. He did the weird people's eyebrow. >> Well, he did like the three, two, one, and then he went like that. >> And he went, he did a one, two, three, he counted up and I was like, what is he counting? And then he left. I don't know. >> I don't know what's happening. >> He still carries the belt around, which might be my favorite part. >> I love the fact that he's just, I just imagine him all the time. He's just got it with him. Every movie set, he's just standing there. >> Yeah, that's why I imagine too. I think it's the funniest thing that he's just like, I just can't. >> I just like the fact that he's like, well, I can't be WWE champion, so I need my own belt made. >> Yeah, no, I just think it's funny that he still carries it around. >> Yeah, well, he is the people's champion. Duh. >> Anyway. >> That's logic. >> Yeah, I'm interested in what's happening now. And again, and when you knew that they were going on last, you knew something big had to have been coming. I just ended with Jimmy, I'd have been like, that was not enough to warrant having Hell in a Cell go at first. >> Yeah. >> Jimmy's back. >> I figure, I mean, they tease down the pet back of the show that like, he's going to be in town for a game. WrestleMania plans are going to be, yeah, that's what I get here. >> Yeah, Tony, Cody's like, it's bigger than you can imagine. I go, okay, well, we just saw the rock, so I can imagine it. >> Yeah, yeah, it's not like he's showing up for the first time in 15 years. >> Yeah, unless you tell me Stone Cold's coming back too, and then all right, then I'll cry, but it's fine. >> And he's even being back recently, so. >> Yeah, yeah, no, it's clear. I'm fascinated, where's the follow up here with this now, right, is okay, is the rock coming back? Are we going to get the rock coming back here and talk about something? What is the next kind of iteration here? Yeah, and then we got to obviously mention right, the post, right, you get the fan recorded video, because WWE's funny and they like to think that it's still a thing. And you see the confrontation with Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes and Kevin finally turns. I like the fact that they're trying new shit, the fact they didn't wait for this to be on television and they just did it, and they're getting that buzz so now it's like, you build that anticipation for SmackDown? I dig it. I kind of dig it. I dug it because I, like, at WWE haters are going to hate this because it wasn't on TV, so we didn't see it happen, but I thought it was, I like it when AEW does it when they post their stuff. >> Yeah. >> And like, oh shit, this, by the way, this happened and we're going to talk about it next week and you're like, oh shit, that's the stuff I really like because it feels like it's actually real and not like, it's not like, oh, I'm coming out here with a microphone and we're not going to touch each other, but I'm going to, I hate you. Like, it really felt like, all right, we're leaving the arena, why are you doing this? I beat you up. >> Right. >> Like, it felt very, like, it could really, it felt like UFC-ish. >> Yeah, it felt very, it felt like Kevin's like, what the hell, and you won't give me a straight answer, right, and Cody's like, I don't even know why you're mad, and he's like, what do you mean you don't know why? Like, I love the fact that there's a sense of realism, you didn't get great angles of it, right? >> Yeah. >> You're trying to portray it as a fan recorded thing where you're just like, what the hell happened? You know, I like the rocks Instagram thing where he kind of came out and he's just rambling to himself because he's old now and he's just leaving and so funny. I think there's a lot of good things that came out of the show. I really think they made it a concerted effort. When you look at this show, you've had five matches with all five different storylines that have had major amounts of TV time on it, right? Like, I agree that they don't think they needed more matches on this show by any stretch. I don't think that it needed to go four hours as another match is brought to you by, you know, mobile or whatever the hell. Real quick too, thoughts on the Crown Jewel Championship that, is that what it's called, the Crown Jewel Championship? The Triple H debuted on the premise of you're going to get every year now at Crown Jewel because everybody knows these shows suck and nobody wants to watch them, but we do anyway, you're going to get the WWE Champion versus the World Heavyweight Champion, men and women in separate matches. I'll explain it better than Triple H did. And the winner, while their individual championships are not on the line, the winner wins that year's version of the Crown Jewel Championship, thoughts on the premise, thoughts on the belt itself, got a new championship. Yeah, I think it's a cool idea, fine premise. I like the fact that now it's just survivor series, but it and Sony Arabia. Yeah, I like the best part about it for me is I like the fact that we're no longer trying to portray having a WWE title match in Saudi Arabia as a big deal. You know what I mean? Oh, it's one of them. Right, it's like, oh, it's no longer Cody versus name a guy in Saudi and you go, well, the title's not changing hands. I just know that already. Now we're taking that off the table. And now it becomes a true pick on because it's like, okay, he wins the title. So what? Yeah. Right? Like if Cody loses, okay, what story do we go from there? Right? I thought it was a cool idea. I kind of dug the belt too. I thought it was kind of neat. It's a lot different. I kind of dug it. That's going to be for this week's show, though. Next week we're talking -- is Wrestle Dream on Saturday or Sunday? Saturday. Yes, that's the right word. Yeah. I think they're all on Saturdays for the rest of the year. Thank God. We'll talk in Wrestle Dream. We'll talk WrestleMania 4. I promise. Yeah, we have to talk about Montreal winning. I know. I know. I know. I know. Even now, 30 years later, we're still downplaying it. I just want to talk about it, right? We just want it. We just want to get to WrestleMania 5. We're -- good WrestleMania start happening. 18 matches later. Anyway, that's going to be it for this week's show. Next week we're talking Tigers. We're going to talk some quick wings as well. Do a revisit there. And then obviously you've got some wrestling in full board. But on behalf of the Merck zone, I'm the mouth of Michigan. We will see you guys, as always, next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Ep. 306 of the I'm Always Right Sports Podcast! Check out this week's rundown and make sure to subscribe! Also use our code: ALWAYSRIGHT for 15% our affiliate partners!
- Tigers make the ALDS!
- Red Wings Expectations
- Lions 3-1 at the Bye
- Preview of AEW WrestleDream
- Review of WWE Bad Blood